A Peek into our Past: A Century of Oceanic ChangesTuesday, April 28, 2015

Jesse Ausubel will give a lecture 6:30-8:30 pm at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Learn More

]]>http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2240/feed0Long Now videohttp://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2234
http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2234#commentsTue, 10 Mar 2015 12:19:24 +0000http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/?p=2234Jesse Ausubel’s Nature Rebounds January 2015 seminar for the Long Now Foundation is now available as:

]]>http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2230/feed0Corngrowers outperform professorshttp://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2224
http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2224#commentsTue, 17 Feb 2015 16:15:02 +0000http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/?p=2224In a 2011 lecture at Iowa State University, Prof. Thomas Sinclair (North Carolina State) concluded from models and projections of yields of maize that maximum US corn yields would be in the neighborhood of 254 bushels per acre, that is, 16 metric tons per hectare.

Between 2009 and 2012 the national average corn yield has been 123 to 165 bushels per acre, about half Sinclair’s maximum of 254. Because Sinclair was speaking of maximum and the US Department of Agriculture reported actual yields for the vast US crop, the excess of Sinclair’s maximum over an actual average is not surprising and shows the opportunity for agronomist scientists is considerable.

Fortunately other reports, these of actual experience, show an even greater opportunity than that between Sinclair’s projected maximum and averages over the entire USA.

For 50 years the National Corn Growers Association has conducted a national contest, and in 2014 the NCGA reported seven participants beat 400 bushels per acre. One participant, Randy Dowdy of Valdosta, Georgia produced 503.

Thus, actual yields of corn show that farmers and suppliers have plenty of room to raise the US average yield from about 150 bushels per acre toward a maximum of 503.

And that performance that professors conclude impossible in theory can happen in practice.

]]>http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2224/feed0Iddo Breakthroughhttp://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2219
http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2219#commentsThu, 12 Feb 2015 20:24:23 +0000http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/?p=2219PHE’s Iddo Wernick was named a Senior Fellow of the Breakthrough Institute for his work on the decoupling of resource use from the environment. This continues our connection with the Institute, as PHE was recognized last year with the award of the Breakthrough Paradigm Prize to Jesse for his work on harnessing technology to lighten the human footprint.
]]>http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2219/feed0Cockroachhttp://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2217
http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2217#commentsTue, 10 Feb 2015 14:57:11 +0000http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/?p=2217PHE’s Mark Stoeckle co-authored the first large-scale study of an important urban wildlife denizen, the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana). This work demonstrates that genetically divergent lineages of American cockroach, likely from different parts of the globe, have emigrated to New York City where they now live together and interbreed–a lot like people! Co-authors include Chris von Beeren and Daniel Kronauer in the Rockefeller Laboratory of Insect Social Evolution; Joyce Xia, a Rockefeller Summer Program student; and Griffin Burke, a Bard College undergraduate. The report appeared on February 6, 2015 in Nature’s open access journal Scientific Reports (link to article). This paper is the culmination of PHE’s National Cockroach Project which enticed 85 citizen scientists to contribute nearly 300 cockroach specimens from mostly from New York City, but also from 16 other U.S. states and 6 countries. Thanks to all contributors!

]]>http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2217/feed0DNA Barcoding of Nutritional Supplementshttp://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2209
http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2209#commentsThu, 05 Feb 2015 14:06:10 +0000http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/?p=2209Back in 2003, PHE’s Mark Stoeckle and Jesse Ausubel organized a pair of meetings at the Banbury Center with Paul Hebert, Norton Zinder and others on Taxonomy, DNA, and the Barcode of Life supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Mark led the writing of a December 2003 meeting report that envisioned “a world in which any person anywhere anytime can identify any species at little or not cost. That world is technologically upon us. This report addresses the formative stages of an initiative to bring this to society sooner rather than later.” In a breakthrough application of DNA barcoding, reported 3 February in the NY Times, “New York Attorney General Targets Supplements at Major Retailers.”

New York’s lead owes much to the work of George Amato at the American Museum of Natural History, Damon Little at the New York Botanical Garden, and Mark here at Rockefeller. Mark, Damon, and Selena Ahmed together with three terrific NY high school students pioneered use of barcoding for analysis of botanical products in their paper:

]]>http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2209/feed0Census of Marine Microbes’ new evolution paperhttp://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2207
http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2207#commentsThu, 05 Feb 2015 13:48:54 +0000http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/?p=2207Co-authors of the new widely reported PNAS paper “Sulfur-cycling fossil bacteria from the 1.8-Ga Duck Creek Formation provide promising evidence of evolution’s null hypothesis” include our close Chilean collaborators, Victor Gallardo and Carola Espinoza, via their work in the International Census of Marine Microbes of the Census of Marine Life. Bravo to all for a great discovery about evolutionary stasis.
]]>http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2207/feed0Nature Reboundshttp://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2198
http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2198#commentsMon, 19 Jan 2015 22:55:39 +0000http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/?p=2198Jesse Ausubel’s 55-minute talk (plus 30 minutes of Q&A), Nature Rebounds, to the Long Now Foundation on 13 January 2015 at the San Francisco Jazz Center is on-line. Thanks to Stewart Brand and Co. for the opportunity to meet with the Bay Area community.
]]>http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2198/feed0Methane hydrates report from UNEP et al.http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2193
http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/archives/2193#commentsTue, 06 Jan 2015 15:16:28 +0000http://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/?p=2193The executive summary of the new UNEP report on methane hydrates, Frozen Heat, is now available. The report includes superb visualizations.